A trail of vehicle fluid near the scene ended about a mile and a half away, with no signs of whether it was connected to the hit-and-run.

Police found two pieces of silver plastic in the road, but no nearby vehicles appeared to have front-end damage and there was no silver vehicle in sight.

Later that afternoon, investigators learned that the incident was connected to their earlier call. Jered had been at the house party that officers had responded to earlier in the morning. Investigators talked to several people who had been there, including some of Jered's friends, but didn't come up with any solid leads.

The officers watched as the medical examiner conducted the autopsy.

Jered was a well-developed and well-nourished White male, 5 feet 7 inches tall and 136 pounds. He had scratches, cuts and bruises all over his body. His head and face had obvious fractures and deformity caused by blunt force.

He had multiple skull fractures, fractured ribs, punctured lungs, a fractured sternum and lacerations to his spleen and liver. His collarbone was dislocated from his breastbone.

A wide wound on his right forearm looked like a "degloving" injury, which usually is caused by a tire rolling over a body, causing the skin to separate.

A toxicology report didn't detect any drugs in his system, but two different samples put his blood-alcohol content at 0.14 percent or 0.16 percent. The legal limit is 0.08 percent.

The medical examiner concluded Jered died from multiple blunt-force injuries caused during the accident. The doctor said his head most likely was run over by a large, heavy object.

Rogers was surprised by the injuries.

At the scene, investigators had found Jered's shoes flung to both sides of the road. Dirt, which they believed came from his feet and legs, spattered in a pattern indicating impact. They had assumed Jered was hit while standing upright.

A person who is hit while standing will have broken bones and other significant injuries to the legs and lower body. But Jered's lower body had only cuts and bruises.

A pedestrian who is hit while standing typically would not have extensive injuries to their head, chest and upper body. But Jered had several skull fractures, broken ribs, punctured lungs, and a degloving injury on his arm. His head had been smashed.

Jered's injuries indicated he hadn't been hit while standing up. He had been run over while sitting or lying in the road.

The officers and doctor discussed the possibilities. Had Jered fallen out of the back of a truck and then been run over?

They still were confused by the time they returned to the Goodyear Police Department.

The officers went to Cmdr. Ralph McLaughlin to explain the autopsy findings. McLaughlin was acting police chief at the time.

"Commander, we're pretty confused on this one," Rogers said. "This is not a, you know, there's no way he was standing struck by a vehicle. He must've been run over or fell out of a pickup truck."

McLaughlin had been briefed on the accident before. He knew Miller, the traffic sergeant who led the team, had talked to Hardin about the concern that his Impala may have been involved.

He discussed the autopsy with Miller's officers for a few minutes. Then he asked them a question that stunned them: "Do you think Hardin did it?"

But according to later interviews, the rest of the accident team had not known about Hardin's worries -- the call to his sergeant or the visual inspection of his vehicle.

"Are you kidding me?" Rogers asked. "What's Hardin have to do with it?"

Rogers was furious, he later would say, to learn Miller hadn't told him about the concerns that a fellow officer may have been involved. He had spent two days looking at other clues, but had not talked to Hardin about the scene, or looked at the Impala.

Now he would have to find it, and quickly, if he hoped to preserve potential evidence.

Hardin was allowed to take his patrol vehicle home when off-duty, and he had not been to work since the morning of the accident.

Bradley Hardin

Before he became a cop, Bradley Hardin worked as a server and bartender.

He grew up in Waddell, graduated in May 2003 from Millennium High School in Goodyear, went to school at Estrella Mountain, Rio Salado and Glendale community colleges, and graduated from Glendale with associate's degrees in police science, administrative justice and general studies.

He started his law-enforcement career in Avondale, then joined the Goodyear Police Department in November 2006.

After about a year and a half as a patrol officer with Goodyear, he joined the street-crimes unit in June 2008 and later was assigned to the state Department of Public Safety auto-theft task force.

Hardin's supervisors considered him an enthusiastic, hardworking officer and a good guy.

Hardin, who is 27, over the course of three months declined multiple requests for an interview through the Goodyear Police Officers Association and did not return a phone call left on his Goodyear police-office phone.

Supervisors in Goodyear have given him outstanding performance reviews every year.

They commended his investigative skills. In a November 2008 review, his street-crimes sergeant praised a self-initiated investigation Hardin conducted into a string of burglaries in one neighborhood that led to the arrest of a suspect and a decline in crime.

He was nominated for employee of the year in 2010 for his hard work and dedication. He received a "Chief's Excellence Award Coin" for the nomination, and another one for his work during an investigation into a national marijuana-shipping group.

Supervisors have said Hardin has outstanding working relationships.

He often drops what he's working on to help other officers, has assisted the investigations unit in locating suspects, comes in early or stays late to help cover shifts, and has come in on his days off to fill in for injured officers, supervisors wrote. They said he is highly respected and a role model to other officers.

They also said Hardin is approachable and professional with the public.

"You are sensitive to the needs of the customers and maintain a positive outlook for them to rely on," one of his supervisors wrote. "You attempt to relate with the customers and provide them with reassurance."

Hardin's love for his job is apparent, they wrote. He goes "to work with a good sense of humor" and constantly is "in a happy mood."

After the case of Jered Pendleton, the attorney hired by the city also commended Hardin -- for immediately notifying a supervisor when he suspected he may have hit the victim, and for cooperating with superiors as they investigated his suspicions. His conduct "speaks highly of his character and integrity," the attorney wrote.

Hardin "has the utmost integrity," said Goodyear Officer Joe Pacello, president of the Goodyear Police Officers Association and a close friend of Hardin's. "He'll help you at a moment's notice because that's the kind of guy he is. ... He's a good-hearted guy."

"Brad Hardin did not hit any kid," Pacello said. "Brad Hardin is an honest, good cop."

The Impala

At the office, Rogers tried calling Miller. Unsuccessful, he called Hardin.

Rogers later recounted the brief conversation for the attorney Goodyear hired.

"Brad, did you think you hit this kid?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Hardin responded, but he assured Rogers that he had told his sergeant and Miller and had done everything he was supposed to.

When Rogers hung up, he rounded up a group of officers and headed to Hardin's Waddell home. The officer's patrol car was parked there.

Department policy allowed officers to take their patrol cars home if they lived in Goodyear or within 5 miles of city boundaries.

As the group pulled up in front of Hardin's tan stucco home, he was "visibly upset." He had just come out of the house, where he had burned his scrambled eggs.

Rogers later told the attorney the city hired that Hardin later told him he was "pissed off because he felt I had just totally betrayed him." He recalled the conversation:

"He's visibly upset with us, like really you're going to bring the whole damn squad out here to my house in front of my neighbors and all this stuff and he's, he feels slighted by us. So we go out there and you know hey Brad, just so you know this is what we have to do. We've got a look at this. You know please understand our perspective. Not saying you did anything, but you just told me on the phone that you were involved in this potentially or you thought you were. That's a really big deal to me and I need to see ... but you have to understand why and he's like no that's fine. I mean I get that, but this is bulls--- that you guys would just roll up on my house like this."

Rogers said that though Hardin wasn't "the happiest camper," he was professional and cooperated with the officers as they looked at his car.

The Impala was parked in the two-car driveway where Hardin said it had been since he returned home from the scene two days earlier.

Hardin worked the weekend night shift from 8 p.m. to 6a.m., Friday through Monday. But he had not worked the Sunday and Monday nights after Jered's body was found. Police memos later would show he had swapped shifts with other officers at their request.

The officers examined the Impala. Rogers later told the attorney the city hired that they thought the car hadn't been washed because it still was covered in a layer of dirt. They didn't see any significant damage.

But they found one noteworthy thing. On the sidewall of the driver's side rear tire, there was a partial shoe print.

The vehicle was loaded onto a tow truck and taken to the Department of Public Safety's crime lab in Phoenix for analysis. Rogers asked the lab to analyze the shoe print on the tire and check for any evidence the car had been involved in a collision.

The next day, DPS analysts notified police of another finding on the car.

About this report

The death of Jered Pendleton remains a mystery, but many from the morning of his death and the subsequent investigation have been extensively documented. This story is based on a review of Goodyear police reports, emails and employment records; investigative reports from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office; an autopsy report from the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office; a report released by former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton, who was hired by Goodyear to review the investigation; federal court documents; and interviews with experts, Goodyear officials, and friends and relatives of Jered.